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Unlike Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, there is no reliable polling in Nevada

No one has any idea how many voters will turn out in Nevada on February 20

Las Vegas (CNN)Long before Donald Trump swept in and upended the GOP race for president, the teams of Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz were building the kind of ground game here that it takes to win in a state where just 7% of GOP voters turned out to caucus in 2012.

That has made Nevada, often called the wild west of the early state contests, even more of a Silver State scramble this year -- looming as one of the biggest mysteries on the presidential nominating calendar.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has served as New Jersey's governor since 2010 and was U.S. Attorney for the state from 2002-10. He started in politics as a volunteer, first on Republican Tom Kean's gubernatorial campaign in 1977 and later on George H.W. Bush's 1992 re-election campaign.

Christie Rand got into a yelling match with Rand Paul over NSA record collection (Christie is for, Paul is against).

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The 43-year-old freshman senator of Florida Marco Rubio is the youngest contender in the race for the presidency. Rubio entered the political realm as an intern to U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida in 1991, while he was attending law school.

On immigration, he said that the evidence is clear the majority of the people coming across border are not from Mexico.

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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, rose to national prominence in 2013 after harshly critiquing the Affordable Care Act at the National Prayer Breakfast, when he warned the U.S. is traveling down the same path as ancient Rome.

Carson, the only African-American onstage, said he was once asked by a reporter why he doesn't talk more about race. "I said it's because I'm a neurosurgeon," he said. When you operate on someone's brain, he added, "the skin doesn't make them who they are." He was operating on the part that makes them who they are, not their skin, he said. The response earned him applause.

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is one of the most recognizable and polarizing governors in the country. In 2012, Walker became the only U.S. governor in history to win a recall election, following his effort to limit collective bargaining power for public sector employees.

When asked by moderator Megyn Kelly, "Would you really let a mother die rather than have an abortion?" Walker replied, "I'm pro-life, I've always been pro-life, and I've got a position consistent with, I think, many Americans out there."

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This is real estate mogul Donald Trump's first debate as a Republican presidential candidate. Trump has been a major political donor since the early 1990s, contributing to both Democratic and Republican campaigns.

"If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be even talking about illegal immigration, Chris," Trump said to Fox News host Chris Wallace. "This was not a subject that was on anyone's mind until I brought it up at my announcement."

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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is son to former president George H.W. Bush and brother to former president George W. Bush. He has been trailing in second place behind Trump in the polls. Bush has been involved in politics since the early 1980s.

Bush addressed the immigration issue by stressing that he did not support "amnesty." "We need to be much more strategic on how we deal with border enforcement, border security," Bush said. "We need to eliminate the sanctuary cities in this country. It is ridiculous and tragic that people are dying because of the fact that local governments are not following the law."

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Mike Huckabee is a former Arkansas governor and Southern Baptist minister. He hosted a TV show, "Huckabee," which ran on Fox News from 2008-2015.

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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, after he rallied conservative and tea party support in Texas, and has since been one of the Senate's most vocal critics of Obamacare. He was the first Republican candidate to announce a campaign for the presidency.

"A majority of the candidates on this stage have supported amnesty.," said Cruz. "I have never supported amnesty."

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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has been in office since 2011. Paul also worked on the congressional and presidential campaigns for his father, former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul. Rand Paul gained national attention by riding the 2010 tea party wave to become the junior U.S. senator from Kentucky following a tough battle in the GOP primary.

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich was elected to the U.S. House in 1982 and represented Ohio until he unsuccesfully ran for president in 2000. After a nine-year stint in the private sector, Kasich ran a successful campaign for governor of Ohio in 2010, when he defeated Democratic incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland. He was re-elected by a wide margin in 2014.

"Trump's hitting a nerve in this country," Kasich said. "For people that want to just tune him out, they're making a mistake."

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Unlike Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, there is no reliable polling here, in part because so few people could show up. The campaigns do not have a reliable list of caucus-goers from 2008 and 2012, because the state party did not maintain that data in a fashion that they could use. And unlike Iowa -- which has long been the first-in-the-nation caucus -- very few Republican voters here are familiar with the basic drill of what a caucus entails.

The bottom line? No one has any idea how many voters will turn out in Nevada on February 20, and that makes it anyone's game to win.

In that sense, Nevada offers a key test next year of whether an untraditional candidate like Trump can muster the kind of organizational strength that more establishment campaigns like Bush and Rubio are bringing to bear.

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'This is a movement'

"This is a movement," Trump told an enthusiastic crowd inside the Mystere Theater at the Treasure Island casino on the Las Vegas Strip Thursday. "This is a movement to take our country back."

But any longtime political hand in Nevada will say that it will take a lot more than a movement to win in the Silver State. And that is the emerging test here for Trump's team here: whether they can channel the energy for his candidacy into a reliable turnout organization of volunteers.

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"It's happening; I'm on Team Trump," said A.J. Maimborg, who previously caucused for Ron Paul and is now volunteering to train caucus-goers for Trump. "We're having a lot more meetings now; we're getting together to get the organization done, and we get more supporters every day."

Maimborg, who was at the Trump rally wearing a black "Trump 2016. Build the Wall" T-shirt, said she ruled out Rand Paul -- once thought to be a serious contender here -- because "he's not his father" and "he flip-flops too much."

She ruled out Bush, because "we don't need another Bush," and ruled out Rubio because she didn't like what she read about him and doesn't think he's up for the job.

"I was a Republican for years and I got tired of both parties, so I went to the American Independent Party. Donald Trump brought me back as a Republican," said Maimborg, adding that she likes him "because he can't be bought."

That energy for Trump -- and for Ben Carson, who was most often named by voters as their second choice at Trump's rally here Thursday -- has raised the stakes in Nevada for Rubio and Bush, who both hoped Nevada would serve as a firewall that could create momentum for their candidacies before they faced off in their home state of Florida.

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After less than 33,000 of the state's 400,000 GOP voters showed up to caucus in 2012, allies of Bush had hoped the state's leaders would agree to switch from a caucus to a primary to ensure greater participation. But the legislature adjourned without taking that step earlier this year. So Bush's team, headed by Nevada-based strategist Ryan Erwin, who led Mitt Romney's successful efforts here in 2008 and 2012, is engaged in a labor intensive effort to train potential caucus goers nearly every other day.

The hope through those trainings, he said, is to "remove the fear of the unknown" in the caucus process.

"We are well organized. We understand what it takes to win, and we are keeping our head down and focused on the task at hand," Erwin said. "A caucus is, by its nature, is a clunky process and difficult to understand -- it's not what people are used to doing," said Erwin, noting that Nevada voters are used to the ease of being able to cast ballots early at their grocery store.

He noted that Nevada also has a disproportionately high number of people that work off-hour shifts: "It's a different commitment than a primary or a general election vote and it takes longer."

Courting party leaders

To help round up and organize those core Republican voters, both Bush's team and Rubio's have worked assiduously to notch endorsements of party leaders here.

Bush won the support of Nevada U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, and has played up his potential to do well among the sizable population of Hispanic voters here in the general election, because of his more welcoming tone on immigration. (Though Nevada is often referred to as the first Latino primary, there is little evidence to suggest that many Hispanic voters will turn out to caucus for Republicans in February.)

Businessman Donald Trump announced June 16 at his Trump Tower in New York City that he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. This ends more than two decades of flirting with the idea of running for the White House.

"So, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again," Trump told the crowd at his announcement.

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Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has made a name for himself in the Senate, solidifying his brand as a conservative firebrand willing to take on the GOP's establishment. He announced he was seeking the Republican presidential nomination in a speech on March 23.

"These are all of our stories," Cruz told the audience at Liberty University in Virginia. "These are who we are as Americans. And yet for so many Americans, the promise of America seems more and more distant."

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich joined the Republican field July 21 as he formally announced his White House bid.

"I am here to ask you for your prayers, for your support ... because I have decided to run for president of the United States," Kasich told his kickoff rally at the Ohio State University.

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Hillary Clinton launched her presidential bid on April 12 through a video message on social media. The former first lady, senator and secretary of state is considered the front-runner among possible Democratic candidates.

"Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion -- so you can do more than just get by -- you can get ahead. And stay ahead," she said in her announcement video. "Because when families are strong, America is strong. So I'm hitting the road to earn your vote, because it's your time. And I hope you'll join me on this journey."

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Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, announced his run in an email to supporters on April 30. He has said the United States needs a "political revolution" of working-class Americans to take back control of the government from billionaires.

"This great nation and its government belong to all of the people and not to a handful of billionaires, their super PACs and their lobbyists," Sanders said at a rally in Vermont on May 26.

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Rubio, who began a three-day swing here Thursday night in Summerlin, has played up his Nevada roots after spending time here as a youth. He has also made strong entreaties to the Mormon community here, which helped deliver the state twice to Romney. The Florida senator also recently landed the support of Scott Walker's Nevada campaign chairman, former Nevada Gov. Bob List.

Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison, Rubio's campaign chairman in the state, pointed to that pickup as another good sign for the Florida Senator as he rises in national polls.

"We're really seeing a lot of momentum here in Nevada for Senator Rubio," Hutchison said. "People just see him as a next-generation leader. ... One thing that you're seeing is that a lot of people who saw Governor Walker as attractive are now are moving their allegiance and their resources over to our effort."

While Paul was viewed as a strong contender earlier this year, because it was assumed that he would inherit the organization of his father, Ron Paul -- the elder Paul's support has splintered among the many candidates in the GOP field.

One of the beneficiaries of that splintering has been Carson, who has not campaigned as much here as Bush and Rubio, but is, by all accounts, building a strong ground organization.

Jimmy Stracner, the former state director for the Republican National Committee, shrugged off the endorsement battle between Bush and Rubio for the top names: "It's not surprising that the political class has gone with Rubio and Bush," he said.

"This is not a race for endorsements. Dr. Carson is not part of the political class," Stracner said. "He's said from day one he's not going to lick the boots of billionaires... People are truly inspired by him, meaning we have the ability to pull in people who have never caucused before."

With so much interest in the race, the caucus experience may be a first-time experiment for many Republicans in Nevada, and the state may ultimately be won not with momentum, but by the campaign who shows the kind of relentless follow-through needed to turn them out.